The Art of Keeping Secrets (24 page)

Sofie and the dolphins were deeper now. The water teemed with tiny fish, shrimp going out with the tide. Sofie followed the pod as it began to feed on a school of menhaden. She looked down at her depth watch, and calculated how long she’d been there. A monstrous realization struck her: she’d made a cardinal mistake—she’d lost track of time.

Somehow in her sorrow, fear and remembering, she’d forgotten to watch the clock and oxygen level. She glanced at the floating gauge and saw the needle almost buried on the large red
E
. She’d once had a dream like this, awakened herself as she grappled with the quilt, clawed at her empty bed.

This was not a dream. How had she gotten in this situation when she knew better? When it had never happened before? At some point she’d been crying, gulping air in bigger and deeper breaths than usual. The adult male dolphin swam back toward her, nudged her bottom with his nose.
I know. I’m going
.

Sofie kicked upward, too fast, she knew. She attempted to take slow, even breaths to save the oxygen she had left. Even if she ran out, she could make it to the top while holding her breath, she told herself as she rose. She mustn’t go up too fast or she’d get the bends. She’d moved too far away from her own boat, from John, who was probably frantic by now at her failure to return.

The surface came into view, shimmering and light-filled. She took another slow breath, filled her entire body as if with helium, full and expansive. A peculiar calm overtook her mind and body; a tranquillity that told her nothing really mattered. She slowed her kicks and floated; she’d rise eventually.

Images moved through her mind. She saw her mother smiling, Knox Murphy standing at their front door holding a box of her favorite crab cakes, the three of them together on the beach at twilight while Sofie collected shells in a tin bucket. Sofie smiled at these beautiful images and wanted to stay with them, find more of them. There was a storehouse of fluorescent memories in her mind, and she wanted to access every single one of them more than she wanted to rise to that surface. Her regulator must be wrong—there was no way she could be out of compressed air so quickly.

She looked up toward the surface and thought it curious that the bottom of a boat dented the smooth top of her world. Breath released into the regulator, and she heard the hissing of empty sound just as she remembered another moment. She’d been about nine years old, and they’d still lived in Marsh Cove; she was in the back of the art studio making a sketch of a house. Her mother was in the front of the store talking to a customer, laughing and explaining the technique of another artist whose work was displayed in the window. Sofie shifted her gaze from her drawing. She’d just made a perfect front door and wanted to show her mother.

Sofie had run out into the main room and hollered for her mother, the paper held in her hand like a flag. Liddy turned around and her face looked like a stranger’s. Instinctively, Sofie dropped the paper and ran to her mother, crying out to know what was wrong.

Her mother had put her hand on top of Sofie’s head, leaned down and whispered to return to the back room and do her homework. Everything was just fine out here. But it wasn’t fine; the man who stood at the front desk was asking too many questions.

The sea’s surface was too far away.

Knox couldn’t stay with them.

Her head hurt and the hissing sound grew louder.

A small boy came into the studio with Knox—Jake—and they hid together in the back room while their parents whispered and Sofie heard her mother cry.

The dolphins poked at her with force now—nudging her more than she wanted. Sofie reached down and touched the top of one dolphin’s head, ran her hand along the silken flesh, or she thought she did, but she couldn’t move her hand; her body wouldn’t obey her.

She tilted her head at the animal—it was Delphin; he’d come.

She closed her eyes because she had to, because her body forced them shut. Then she heard it—the soft double click followed by a squeal that she had come to know as Delphin’s greeting.

Her mother stood in the front of the studio. Twilight surrounded her as she faced the easel, her face smiling, a paintbrush in her hand.

Sunlight fell through the water in thin strips.

My name,
Sofie thought,
a double click and a squeal
. She sank into this knowledge: they did know her. Wasn’t that all that mattered?

Yes, her mother had told her that Knox knew them. He knew their real name. Everything else was not nearly as important as the fact that he knew them.

Then, like the news of the plane crash, and the realization that her mother was on that plane, pain shot through Sofie’s head, then her body. She released a long breath. In the darkness, she heard one last sound: Delphin calling her name.

SEVENTEEN

ANNABELLE MURPHY

The road from Newboro to Marsh Cove unwound before Annabelle’s windshield. She continued to recall moments with Knox—who he was to her and their family: things he did, words he said. This was her conclusion: she
chose
to believe in Knox Murphy. No matter what the circumstances or scattered facts suggested, she intended to believe in him.

The eight-hour drive went by in a blur of blacktop, boiled-peanut stands, shrimp shacks and her favorite—a barbecue place called the Butt Hutt. Her driveway appeared as though it were a mirage, shimmering and distant, as she drove down the street to her home.

She parked and released a long breath. She was climbing up the porch steps when the front door opened, and Keeley came out with her hands on her hips. Annabelle went to her daughter and reached to hug her, but was greeted with angry resistance.

“Did you tell Gamma I couldn’t use the car, that I had to stay in the house until you got home?”

“Well, hello, Keeley. Good to see you. I missed you, too.” Annabelle smiled, hoped to defuse the anger rolling across the porch like incoming fog.

“I’m serious, Mom. Did Gamma make that up or did you tell her that?”

“Keeley, you skipped school. You lose car privileges and social privileges when you skip school.” Exhaustion crept up on Annabelle, and she wished she could tell Keeley to do whatever she wanted—go take the car, forget school, just don’t look at her with such hate; she couldn’t take it anymore.

Keeley slumped into a chair on the porch. “I didn’t skip. I left school for one period. One. Then I didn’t go the day you left because . . . well, just because.”

“That’s skipping, technically.” Annabelle sat down next to her daughter. “What is going on with you?”

Keeley stared at her mother with hard eyes, and Annabelle mourned the lost child with the sweet smile and soft cheeks. “Nothing is going on with me,” Keeley said with a closed mouth.

“You hate everything and everyone.” Annabelle rubbed her stinging eyes.

“No, I don’t hate everyone. “ Keeley stood, stared down at her mother. “Just you and Dad.”

The sentence carried more weight and import than four words strung together should. Annabelle’s shoulders sagged, her heart split, and Keeley slammed the front door as she went back into the house.

Annabelle stared across the street toward the bay and thought maybe, just maybe she should have stayed in Newboro. “Oh, Knox,” she whispered, “what do I do now?”

Running to Newboro hadn’t solved anything. While she’d told herself she was tracking down “the truth,” she’d merely been remembering the past. She had recounted and recalled and reconstructed a time that was forever lost to their family.

But she wanted Keeley to remember the truth: who Knox was, how he loved, what his heart was made of. If Annabelle couldn’t trust what she’d learned in Newboro, at least she could trust her memories.

Wind trembled through the magnolia tree; leaves plunged to the ground in a twirling ballet. Annabelle stepped off the porch toward the tree. She remembered what the expert had told her—that this tree would not stand for long, that the extra weight and pull of the new offshoots would weaken the main trunk. She hadn’t wanted to believe him because to her this tree represented her family. They didn’t pull one another down, but held one another up through buffeting winds and storms.

Now it seemed important that she be right about this, that the tree still stood strong and sure, that the leaves and branches were healthy and thriving, that the root system went deep. Annabelle knelt at the tree’s base and ran her hand along the knobby ground, up the trunk and through the lower branches, where her children once hid when it was time for chores or homework.

The branches remained firm, the leaves waxy, green. Her relief was so great, she finally allowed the sobs to come—the weeping she had withheld all during the eight-hour drive from the place where Liddy Parker had lived with her daughter, Sofie, the last piece of earth her husband had touched. The ground below the magnolia absorbed her tears of sorrow and confusion, the root system nourished by her own loss and uncertainty.

She leaned against the trunk, allowed it to hold her up as exhaustion followed and her eyes closed. She stretched out on the ground and laid her head on a thick protruding root. Her eyes stung, her head ached as she whispered, “I’m home.”

A peace that only comes with letting go washed over her. Trust was moving and breathing again inside her, turning to faith in Knox even though she didn’t understand his actions.

Keeley’s voice screeched across the yard, shattering the quiet. It took Annabelle a moment to realize what she was saying. “What is wrong with you? Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?”

Keeley stood with her hands flailing, staring at Annabelle as though she were indeed insane. Annabelle sat up, wiped her face where she felt the grit of dirt and moss on her cheek. “I’m fine, Keeley. You can stop screaming at me.”

Keely turned away from her as though she were ashamed to look at her, to see her dirty face and clothes. Annabelle stood and touched her daughter’s shoulder.

Keeley spun around again, her expression contorted with emotion. “What are you doing? Why are you lying in the dirt?”

Annabelle read the trepidation under Keeley’s anger. She had lost her father and didn’t understand why. And now it appeared that her mother had completely lost her mind. All this time, Annabelle had thought the glittering anger emanating from Keeley stemmed from hate, but the emotion moving, living and breathing in Keely was fear.

New relief filled Annabelle. She could not cleanse her daughter of anger or hate, but she could assuage Keeley’s terror. She touched her daughter’s arm. “I’m fine. We’re all fine. I was out here rejoicing in the strength of our family, in the strong roots we have. We’re okay.”

Keeley wiped at her face, as if this could remove the emotions shifting across her features. “What about . . . Dad? He’s not okay, and he’s not who we thought. What if . . . what if he really was leaving us?”

Annabelle held both Keeley’s shoulders in her hands, held her fast so Keeley had to look into Annabelle’s eyes. “I know this feeling, Keeley. I’ve been there. I know what you’re thinking.”

Keeley shoved Annabelle’s hands off her shoulders. “There is no way you know what I’m thinking. You can’t read my mind.”

“You’re thinking this: you’re scared to death that everything you’ve believed about your father is an illusion. That everything that has guided your life, the very foundation of your life, is false, a lie. It’s a terrible place to be, a terrible place to live. It’s dark and scary and twirling with ugly thoughts, and all of a sudden nothing seems to matter anymore—not school, not friends, not family. Nothing really matters because what you believed isn’t true. That’s why I ran off to North Carolina.” Annabelle stopped and took a deep breath, realized the words had come too fast, too bluntly.

Keeley bent over, placed her hands on her knees. “Stop, Mom. Please shut up.”

Annabelle placed her hand on top of Keeley’s chestnut curls and remembered holding this child against her breast, shushing her to sleep, patting her back until her breathing smoothed out and she could place her in the crib next to her night-night doggie stuffed animal and let her sleep in peace. Oh, to do that now, Annabelle thought, to place her hand on Keeley’s head until sleep and peace came that easily.

“Oh, Keeley. Just remember. Just remember one thing about your father, and you’ll know. Think.”

Keeley straightened and her hard, wet eyes and clenched, trembling jaw were a portrait of confused emotions. She set her feet in motion and ran barefoot across the lawn toward the road, toward the park and bay. Her frayed jeans, her untucked tank top were too loose on her small frame.

Annabelle watched until Keeley reached the edge of the bay and stopped at the dock. Then Annabelle went after her. When she arrived at Keeley’s side, Keeley twirled around. “Leave me alone. I mean it. Leave. Me. Alone.”

“No,” Annabelle said.

“Why? Why can’t you just go away?”

“Because I love you too much, and I can’t have you thinking wrongly. You are part of me, Keeley. You cannot, ever, make me stop loving you—no matter what you say or how you act.”

“You say that now. But look at Dad—he obviously stopped loving us. And you know it.”

“I don’t know any such thing.”

“Give me a freaking break, Mother. He ran off with some woman. If you call that loving us, you’re delusional.”

“It was Liddy Parker. She was the woman who once owned the art studio here.”

Keeley went still, stared out over the water. “I don’t remember her, but I’ve heard people talk about how she started the art studio. Don’t we have one of her paintings?”

“Yes, the one in the foyer,” Annabelle said, realizing she still had not stepped into her house and looked at the painting with fresh eyes.